NEW DELHI: Being a city-state, Singapore is finding India to be a `happy hunting ground' to train its small but high-tech armed forces. After F-16 fighters, it has now deployed its Bionix armoured personnel carriers and Bronco all-terrain tracked vehicles for an intensive month-long training in India.

As many as 38 armoured vehicles from the 46th armoured regiment of the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF), along with Spike anti-tank guided missiles and other sophisticated weaponry, are currently engaged in intensive combat manoeuvres at the Babina field firing ranges in Madhya Pradesh.

The three-phase training exercises will culminate in the joint `Bold Kurukshetra' wargames with Indian mechanised forces towards the end of this month to `boost interoperability' between the two armies, said defence ministry officials on Tuesday.

India has steadily emerged as a regular host for the training of SAF, providing facilities for exercises for mechanised forces at Babina and artillery at Deolali ranges as well as for fighters at the Kalaikunda airbase in West Bengal.

Tiny Singapore, in fact, ranks virtually as second only to the US in terms of ground-level military exercises with India. While India and Singapore inked a bilateral agreement on defence cooperation in October 2003, subsequent military pacts like the one signed in 2008 have paved the way for India to regularly host the SAF.

With land and airspace being scarce in Singapore, given that a fighter jet can zip across it in just a few minutes, the country has always been in the hunt for large military training facilities. In addition to India, Singapore has similar agreements with countries like US, France, Australia, Thailand and Brunei.

Singapore, of course, pays for access to the training facilities and has even stationed some of its military equipment and small personnel detachments in India on a permanent basis.

India also gets to witness sophisticated weaponry at close quarters. IAF pilots, for instance, got to size up the F-16 fighter jets, which Pakistan continues to get from the US, for the first time only after SAF brought them to India for a joint exercise.

"It's a win-win situation for both sides. As per the agreements, the armies and air forces of India and Singapore can even hold joint exercises twice a year,'' said an MoD official.

The `Sindex' air combat exercise between India and Singapore, for one, has become a regular feature at the Kalaikunda airbase over the last few years. Similarly, the `Simbex' exercises between the two navies are also conducted every year.